Monday Morning Quarterback

It looks like the Pentagon is preparing for a Baghdad coup as much as they are an Anglo-American invasion.

The New York Times reports nothing much new and very little unexpected in a Sunday story on American war plans:

President Bush has settled on a war plan for Iraq that would begin with an air campaign shorter than the one for the Persian Gulf war, senior administration officials say. It would feature swift ground actions to seize footholds in the country and strikes to cut off the leadership in Baghdad.

The plan, approved in recent weeks by Mr. Bush well before the Security Council’s unanimous vote on Friday to disarm Iraq, calls for massing 200,000 to 250,000 troops for attack by air, land and sea. The offensive would probably begin with a “rolling start” of substantially fewer forces, Pentagon and military officials say.

The only real item of interest here is that General Tommy Franks will have the ability to begin the invasion

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“Iraqi security services have uncovered a plot by certain enemies of the state that involved the stockpiling and production of certain weapons of mass destruction. Those responsible were killed in a fierce gun battle with our valiant security forces. We have notified the United Nations that these weaposn were found here, and here, and here. We welcome United Nations inspectors and promise unrestricted access to sites. As we have always maintained, the Iraqi government has no weapons of mass destruction program and our discovery of this plot should confirm this.”

I’ve still got a problem with these kinds of “plans” that have the 82nd or the 101st hopscotching across Iraq. Just because some of the guys in the 82nd can fall out of perfectly serviceable aircraft, or some of the guys in the 101st can be moved around tactically by helo doesn’t mean that these divisions can move strategic distances like a pogo stick. Their logistical tails are still long, heavy, and not airmobile. And since I’m still not convinced that there is much of a supply route from Turkey through Mosul, I still only see one line of advance, up from Kuwait.

It’s the 82d Airborne Division, not “Air Assault Division.” The 82d does not have near the number helicopters that the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) does (and yes, that is the 101st’s actual name).

The 101st can move a whole brigade including support slice at one time by helicopter easily. The 82d can move about a battalion at a time. The 82d is really a foot infantry division that sometimes arrives at the battlefield by parachute – after which, they walk.